


brighter than the sun

by werepope (quiteparadise)



Category: Digimon Adventure Zero Two | Digimon Adventure 02
Genre: High School, Ken will always be a genius, M/M, outsider pov, the ol' bait and switch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 14:19:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13928850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiteparadise/pseuds/werepope
Summary: Everyone has a bit of a crush on Ichijouji Ken.





	brighter than the sun

If you polled the population of Azabu High School, forty percent of students would admit to having harbored at least a fleeting attraction to Ichijouji Ken.  The percentage would go up substantially amongst those who’d had some interaction with him; even if you could ignore his looks in the bustle of the hallway, there was no denying them up close, nor his sweet, seemingly genuine manners.

Kaneko Yuuto interacted with Ichijouji twice:

First, while recruiting new members for the shogi club.  Yuuto was passingly aware of Ichijouji. Azabu was a prestigious and moderately small school.  It was impossible not to hear the names of every class’ top students a few dozen times a year, spoken with a tone of politic envy.  Yuuto knew the name, but he couldn’t have picked Ichijouji out of a crowd. He certainly didn’t target him. He simply walked up to him, showed him the flier for the club, and asked if he was interested in joining.

“It’s okay if you don’t know how to play,” Yuuto told him, horrified to find himself heating up under Ichijouji’s attention.  His gaze wasn’t particularly frank or even wholehearted. It was polite, the same way Yuuto paid due attention to sales clerks or dull relations come to visit.  It was unfoundedly arresting.

“Ah,” Ichijouji said, ducking his head. “I’m sorry.  I’m a member of the soccer club.”

_Violet_ , Yuuto thought as he bobbed an apologetic bow in return and pivoted, unfeeling, to another student.  He had violet eyes.

Yuuto became suddenly and infuriatingly aware of Ichijouji.  He couldn’t walk through the hall without catching a glimpse of him, rounding a corner or passing by below just as Yuuto glanced out the window.  If he hadn’t seen Ichijouji interacting with other students, hadn’t heard half a dozen bemoan his existence while comparing test results, he might have thought Ichijouji didn’t exist at all, was pure delusion brought on by stress or poor diet.

It was a cruel irony, then, that Yuuto’s second conversation would come from not seeing Ichijouji for once, and bumping into him hard enough that they both stumbled.  Ichijouji grabbed a shoe locker with one hand to keep his balance. The other hand caught Yuuto’s sleeve and saved him from smashing his face on the tile.

Mortified didn’t begin to cover it.

He wasn’t used to this feeling at school, where the whole female population was limited to a few matronly faculty members.  He was, as a direct consequence of that, absolutely horrible with girls. They were like fairy creatures -- lovely and distant and purely theoretical.  He could barely interact with them without feeling like he was going to burst a blood vessel. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, apparently Ichijouji had the same effect.

“So sorry,” Yuuto barked, taking a hurried step back and out of Ichijouji’s grip.  That he managed to step back into the dead air of a two centimeter drop between wood and tile, causing yet another stumble, was unfair.  That Ichijouji reached for him again, violet eyes going hugely wide as Yuuto lost his balance and fell, finally, straight back onto his ass -- that was the universe sending him a message.

He might have listened to it, too, except that Ichijouji was so hugely apologetic as he helped Yuuto up, so openly and embarrassingly concerned about possibly injury.  If having even half of Ichijouji’s attention before had been arresting, having all of it was seismic.

Yuuto wouldn’t say that they were friends after that but he’d venture so far as to say that they were friendly.  They ate lunch together a few times. Yuuto went to a handful of soccer games and cheered when Ichijouji made long smooth passes into the box, made an effort to congratulate him after wins.  They even exchanged phone numbers to coordinate study sessions. That hadn’t come to anything -- Ichijouji was always busy on the weekends and they lived pretty far away besides, but they did text now and again.  They weren’t friends, but they were getting there, and Yuuto hoarded that closeness as a precious thing, to be turned over and over in his mind, polishing it smooth with care.

He wasn’t in love with Ichijouji.  Infatuation wasn’t the same thing as love, and mistaking the two was a direct path to unhealthy obsession.  But he was open to the idea of being attracted to Ichijouji, helped along by the way other boys talked about him.  Yuuto was hardly alone.  Ichijouji had knife sharp features still emerging from the softness of childhood.  In three years he would be all carved angles but at sixteen there was an androgynous quality to him, sweet but not exactly harmless.

No, it wasn’t love, but autumn rolled on with Ichijouji lingering at the corners of his eyes, and if Yuuto thought about Ichijouji with affection that tinged on romantic, it was only natural.

Shogi club was small: a dozen students, more first years than upperclassmen, but enough bodies to run their room at the cultural festival.  Yuuto got to sneak away for an hour near the end, just to poke his head into a few of the rooms and wave to his friends, steal a piece of candy or admire a swaying can tower.

“Where’s the soccer club?” he asked, unwrapping a gummy and moving in and out of the doorway of a second year classroom, trying to keep the attention of some of the students without getting run off for keeping them occupied.

“Second floor,” someone called, and Yuuto waved thanks before he took off, dodging a group of grandparents with a hasty apology, barely audible for the candy in his mouth.  He went up the stairs at a decent clip, some of the stress of having to deal with so many people already burning off.

He and Ichijouji were friendly, even if they weren’t particularly close.  It would be more weird if he didn’t go say hello. Besides which, the soccer club was huge and apparently went all out every year, with a scavenger hunt and tombola.  He had plenty of reason to go.  If he dawdled a bit on the second floor, hovering at the edge of the loose crowd gathered around the soccer club’s room, that was okay too.

It only took a moment and a shove up onto the balls of his feet to catch sight of Ichijouji through the press, wearing a green ribbon on his blazer and speaking to a clutch of teenagers in streetwear.  Yuuto was too far away to do more than catch a flash of their expressions. He had to push closer, almost through the door, to hear anything they were saying.

Ichjouji was explaining what they were looking for in the scavenger hunt, barely a pause between instructions, something he’d been saying over and over all day long.  Most of them weren’t paying him much attention, heads bowed over the map. A tall girl with lavender hair was smiling at him, though, interrupting to tell him how grown up he sounded -- “like a cop or something.  Very authoritative, Ken-chan.”

Ichijouji colored slightly, pinked ears peeking through the dark curtain of his hair, and Yuuto felt a moment of warm elation to see him blush before something wrenched out of place in his chest.  The girl was their age, pretty, a little taller than Ichijouji in her heels. Her hair was plaited back from her face but fell straight and long and shiny down her back. She was the kind of girl that reduced Yuuto to a shrivel, confidant and cheerful, and it felt uncomfortably like betrayal to watch Ichijouji be so friendly with her, to watch her laugh and touch his arm and demand he accompany them.

“We're here to see Ken,” she said.  “It's not cheating if he doesn't help. Come on, come on. Let’s go.”

Ichijouji let himself be pulled toward the door, attempts to apologize to his fellow club members met with friendly jeering.  They wouldn’t dare argue, not with a couple of pretty girls laughing and urging Ichijouji out the door, into the hallway, past Yuuto.  He turned to follow, to keep them in line of sight. Through the parted crowd he saw the girl with lavender hair release Ichijouji’s wrist and cut a beaming smile at him.

Ichijouji was busy on the weekends, had standing plans for every weekend that wasn’t already booked with soccer.  The first time Yuuto asked about getting together to study, Ichijouji apologized but didn’t offer to shift his schedule, a little surprising for someone who took top marks more often than not.  Yuuto wasn’t a slouch.  He’d tested into Azuba same as every other student, had grades that settled him firmly in the middle of his class, and he spent hours with his schoolwork every weekend, reviewing for tests and reading ahead to keep up with more difficult subjects.  It seemed more impossible than unfair that Ichijouji could keep his ranking while balancing a starting position in a big soccer club and a girlfriend.

Yuuto sagged back against the wall.  If anyone could, he supposed. Ichijouji wasn’t a star striker; he was a defensive midfielder, good at getting the ball and passing it on to the people who made the heroic runs across the pitch.  He didn’t finish tests first, kept his eyes down and took his time to make sure that his answers were correct and necessarily thorough.  He certainly never flaunted his girlfriend.

If anyone could maybe it was Ichijouji, steadfast and thoughtful and attractivein a way that made Yuuto’s stomach hurt with a sudden twist.  He frowned. He took a deep breath. He looked up, to catch a glimpse of Ichijouji and his lavender-haired girlfriend.  He pushed off the wall and came within an inch of being side-swiped by a one-person stampede.

A boy in street clothes nearly took a tumble as he slid, bright orange socks giving no purchase on the freshly waxed floor.  He tottered for a treacherous moment, kept his feet under him, laughed, and ducked a barely-there bow toward Yuuto.

“Sorry,” he said, already turning to run again, already calling out: “Hey, wait!  I’m here!”

The lavender-haired girl rounded on him.  “You’re such a nuisance! Can’t you be quiet for once?”

The others smiled in varying shades of embarrassment, parting to welcome him into the group as they continued on.  Only Ichijouji stood in place to wait, not an ounce of chagrin in his smile.

“Sorry,” the boy said again, more sincerely this time.  He was panting a little as he caught up, snagged to a stop on Ichijouji’s attention.  “I had to do laps.”

Ichijouji reached out and plucked the cord of the boy’s hoodie out of his shirt.  “You were late to practice again.” It wasn’t quite a question, and Yuuto had to strain to hear him, voice pitched low under the chatter of the club room.

The boy smiled.  “It’s okay. I had good reason.”

For the second time, Ichijouji blushed, tipping his head down to hide the worst of it under the smooth sweep of his hair.  The boy laughed, swung an arm around him, and for a moment the whole school faded away to static as Ichijouji got pulled into an easy grip.  If Yuuto weren’t pinpoint focused on them, he would have missed the ways in which the hug wasn’t quite friendly:

The boy’s hand on the back of Ichijouji’s neck was loose and familiar, the one at his back firm and spread wide, like he was feeling the shape of Ichijouji through his blazer.  Ichijouji curved snugly into him, tipped his lowered head to press his cheek to the boy’s jaw. The fabric of the boy’s sleeve, garishly bright like his socks, pulled tight over his bent elbow as Ichijouji caught it with his fingers and held on for a breath, and then--

They parted, Ichijouji still flushed but smiling with it now, and the boy kept his arm slung over Ichijouji’s shoulders, said something too soft to hear.  He got the full force of Ichijouji’s laugh for it, a sound that hit Yuuto through the ribs and stuck, freezing him in place. He watched through the crowd as they walked to the end of the hall, as Ichijouji reached up and caught the boy’s fingers, as they rounded the corner and the boy looked at Ichijouji like he was entirely aware of all the little, normal, extraordinary things that made Ichijouji stand out.

It wasn’t as if Yuuto was ever going to do anything like confess to Ichijouji, but maybe he had been looking forward to savoring the feeling of looking at him with longing for a while longer.  It had been nice to entertain the possibility, to imagine the ways it could have gone, to think of making Ichijouji blush and smile and laugh. It felt weird, to think that someone else had been doing it all along.


End file.
